The Mobile Lifestyle Intervention for Food and Exercise Study

Summary

The goal of the study is to examine long term sustained weight loss digital intervention in a diverse cohort of adults with overweight/obesity. The intervention includes social gaming (using game-like elements in nongame contexts to promote supportive social interactions and openness to positive behavioral influences) to reward behaviors, such as self-monitoring and social support.

Investigators will accomplish objectives and test hypotheses by following two specific primary aims:

1. Determine if the intervention plus gaming produces significantly more weight loss at 12 months than the same intervention without gaming among 240 adults with overweight or obesity and ≥3 T2DM risk factors.
2. Examine the differences in social support provision and receipt between groups at 12 months.

Conditions

• Overweight and Obesity
• Type2 Diabetes

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Podcasts and tips of the day (within app)

Participants will receive twice weekly podcasts and daily tips of the day, with nutrition and exercise information, audio diary and goal setting.

BEHAVIORAL

mLIFE app (self-regulation features)

Diet (track by in app database), physical activity (tracked with FitBit and synced with mLIFE app), and weight (tracked with FitBit scale and synced with mL app) tracking app components. App notifications and reminders and newsfeeds.

BEHAVIORAL

mLIFE app (social support features)

The gamified mLIFE app contains several components to help facilitate social gaming and support. This includes a newsfeed, to view the progress of other users, the ability to send others encouragement ("likes/thumbs-up") for achieving goals, user-to-user messaging system so active users of the app will be prompted to select send encouraging messages to other group members. For the experimental group, the app also includes features that facilitate healthy competition among participants through receipt of points for provision of social support and tracking health behaviors.

BEHAVIORAL

standard mLIFE app (social support features)

The standard mLIFE app has the ability to send others encouragement ("likes/thumbs-up") for achieving goals and a user-to-user messaging system so active users of the app will be prompted to select send encouraging messages to other group members.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)

  collaborator NIH

• University of South Carolina

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Brie Turner-Mcgrievy · University of South Carolina

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-03-01

Primary Completion

2024-07-12

Completion

2025-09-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations